Succession and seasonality drive tropical butterfly assembly after an extreme hurricane

We monitored butterfly communities in two Puerto Rican forests differing in structure to assess butterfly diversity, abundances, and community-level wing traits (size and color) over one year, beginning six months after Hurricane Maria. This dataset includes monthly species counts (abundances), species mean wing trait values, and site level characteristics including abiotic (temperature, humidity, canopy openness) and derived community-weighted mean metrics (i.e., functional diversity, and community-weighted mean trait values). Monthly sampling revealed no significant relationships between abundances and canopy openness or humidity; instead, species abundances fluctuated seasonally and were non-linearly correlated with temperature. In contrast, wing size and color were linearly correlated with changes in abiotic conditions, indicating that the hurricane differentially impacted larger-sized and functionally rare species. Specifically, wings were larger in cooler and more open conditions...., We monitored butterfly populations in two forests located in Puerto Rico’s Cordillera Central: Bosque del Pueblo and Bosque La Olimpia using nets, fruit bait traps, and visual counts. For visual counts, we performed standardized transect walks along a 2 km route, with approximately seven person-hours dedicated to sampling per month per site over one year.
We collected three individuals per species, usually one female, one male (when sex could be differentiated in the field), and an additional individual, to prepare as voucher specimens. All specimens were deposited at the Museo de Zoologia at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras (museum code: UPRRP). Furthermore, we measured the canopy cover using a fish-eye lens (ECO-FUSED, U.S.) attached to a smartphone and analyzed images using the Gap Light Analyzer application which calculates the percentage of occupied pixels and thus canopy cover. We also measured temperature and humidity using data loggers.
We photographed all voucher speci..., , # Data from: Succession and seasonality drive tropical butterfly assembly after an extreme hurricane

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q1g](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q1g)

The data files describe butterfly species abundances, and site abiotic variables (temperature, humidity, canopy openness, and calculated diversity metrics) per monthly sampling occurrence in two wet subtropical forests in Puerto Rico. In addition, species mean wing trait values are provided for a suite of size and color traits.

## Description of the data and file structure

Three data files are included as comma-separated values files: abundances.csv, siteVariables.csv, and speciesTraits.csv.

*abundances.csv* has the following columns:

* date_YYYYMM: [numeric] The date of each sampling event, using the four-digit year and two-digit month.
* site: [text] The forest where sampling occurred.
* Then, 43 species are included as columns (integers) with the cell value indicating the number of individua...